Surfacing
by shipperjunkie
Summary: Sequel to Hot Mess, which should really be read first but essentially, Elena and Damon hooked up in the woods in his car. And now here's Damon's POV, and there's skinny-dipping, water frolicking, and the boy has some questions. Because he's Damon. Adult.


_Author's Note: A giant thank-you to Marta, who beta-read, held my hand and generally kicked my ass throughout the process. The first version of this was a crime against humanity via words. You don't even know._

Warily, Damon followed the sway of Elena's naked backside as she lead him through the woods. Underneath his booted feet, leaves crunched noisily as walked through the underbrush, trailing three or four steps behind. Bright moonlight filtered through overhead tree limbs, setting off her gorgeous ass spectacularly as she lead him closer and closer to the river.

After their encounter in the backseat of his car, she'd suggested they go swimming in the nearby river, and he'd agreed. Of course, he hadn't really thought she was serious. What kind of person wanted to go swimming in November immediately after making life-altering decisions? Baby vampires on the verge, apparently. She'd climbed out of the car and stood expectantly, waiting impatiently for him to get with the program. So he'd pulled his pants up, leaving his belt undone and the fly open, and climbed out after her.

Elena, on the other hand, hadn't bothered putting anything back on, not even her shoes.

She'd just started walking. And despite the absurdity of the entire situation, Damon had followed. He'd probably follow her anywhere, really.

Especially if she happened to be naked.

He couldn't shake the thought that Elena was usually just a touch more modest than this, though, more reserved. Walking nude through the forest was a large departure from how she'd normally behave, surely. Or maybe it wasn't, and casual outdoor nudity wasn't that big a deal for her. His own outdoor nudity certainly wasn't. Maybe she and Matt, or she and . . . maybe she and all her boyfriends frolicked naked in the woods. How would he know?

"So when you said we should go swimming . . ."

She paused and turned slightly to glance over her shoulder at him, smiling as she stretched a hand out to him, urging him on. He took it, enjoying a quick glimpse of side boob before she turned back, tugging gently at his hand. "I meant it," she said. "I don't want to go back just yet. Do you have somewhere else you need to be right now? Afraid you'll lose your standing reservation at The Grill? Your barstool will be there tomorrow, I promise."

Good, he thought. He was likely going to need it. "You're cutting in to my alone time, but I guess I can make an exception for skinny-dipping. You're going to put out, though, right? Some more, I mean."

Her laugh was loud and echoed off the nearby trees. "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

Damon sighed dramatically. "Tease."

The story of his life, basically.

They weren't far from the riverbank. When they reached it he leaned over to untie his boots then stood back up to find Elena watching him. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth and her eyes sparkled with interest. And more than a little appreciation.

"What? You're staring."

"No I'm not! I'm just . . . you know . . . whatever, I'm staring." She broke eye contact then, letting her gaze drift lower over him and linger as he stepped out of his jeans. When he bent to pick them up she giggled a little. "It's just that you're very pretty. I'm not sure anyone's ever told you that before."

"Once or twice." He folded his pants and laid them on top of his boots. "Are we going to do this or not?"

"After you," she said with a sweep of her hand.

The water was cold, really fucking cold, and he tried to be a man about it and not suck air between his teeth as he waded in first. Vampire or not, it would be a few minutes until he adjusted to the temperature. He expected Elena to yelp and when she didn't, he turned to find her still on the bank. She took a big, deep breath as if to steel herself, and just as he opened his mouth to urge her on she jumped.

When she hit the water and slipped beneath the surface, Damon's world shifted and his stomach dropped. Nausea rolled through him as he broke out in a sweat. For just a moment, he was back at that storage facility, beaten to within an inch of his life, cradling the desiccating body of his best friend in his arms. He was right back there in that awful moment when he'd realized what must have happened, his mind skittering away from the truth even as his heart had broken.

Somewhere, without him, too far away, Elena had just died.

That somewhere was here, not four or five miles downstream. A month ago. How could he have not thought of it immediately, the moment she'd said she wanted to swim? Her death was the single worst moment of his entire existence. The thought of her drowning haunted his waking hours, kept him up most nights drinking far more than even he could probably handle. When she'd said "let's go swimming" it should have rung a goddamn bell. What had he been thinking?

He hadn't been thinking. He'd been in a cloudy fog of sex-addled euphoria, her declaration of love busily winding its way through him. She could have said "let's go sunbathing without our rings" and he would have said "sounds like a plan."

He wanted out of the water, wanted to grab her around the waist and haul her over his shoulder. Drag her from this fucking river. His head began to spin and then she resurfaced, spluttering, shoving her wet hair back from her face with both hands.

Laughing.

"Quit being a baby, it's not that cold," she said when she blinked the water from her eyes and noticed him standing stock still, staring at her. She splashed him a little with a flick of both hands. "What's your deal?"

Damon took a breath and struggled to keep his shit together. Clearly she hadn't had the same reaction to being in this particular river, so he wasn't about to bring it up and ruin her mood.

"It's November," he managed, the only reasonable protest he could think of. He nearly sounded normal.

Elena tilted her head a little, her smile dimming just the tiniest bit as she regarded him. "We're vampires, Damon. Skinny-dipping in November won't kill us."

"No, it certainly won't, that's true," he agreed, taking a step and then another, until he was in up to his waist and she was close enough to reach. "Mud between the toes is just the best feeling ever, by the way. Not fucking gross at all."

"Could you whine a little harder, you think?"

Elena lifted wet hands to his face and drew him to her, and when their mouths met he reminded himself, again, that while she may have died she wasn't gone.

A hard knot inside him began to loosen and unfurl the longer their kiss went on. Whether things worked out for them, or more likely, whether things didn't, she wasn't gone and she never would be. She was immortal now, eternal, forever; one way or another, somewhere in the world there would always be Elena Gilbert.

And he would always love her.

That's just the way it was.

They spent a long while swimming together, chasing each other underneath the surface of the water. They splashed each other like children in the moonlight and frightened the fish away. It was surreal, like a moment outside of time itself, almost ethereal. Damon wanted to trust it, wanted to let himself revel in this strange, light-hearted happiness but he couldn't. Not fully, anyway.

Elena was like some sort of water nymph, circling him, teasing him with the lightest of touches. He lunged for her and she darted away with a shriek that echoed through the quiet.

"Ha!" she crowed, triumphant, when her ankle slipped from his grasp.

He should be happy as a clam and hard as a rock, but all he could think was what the hell? There was no way he could just relax and let himself enjoy playing in the water with her. This was fun but fucking weird, far too good to be true and he had just too many questions.

He knew he shouldn't open his mouth, but he had to. Even though he knew better.

(What are you doing? This trip, you kissing me . . . what the hell is this?)

"So what happens now?"

Elena, a few yards away, turned gracefully in the water to look at him. Her expression was a little confused, her smile fading. "What do you mean, 'what happens now'?"

"It's you and me now, right?" The words stuck in his throat a little. He felt like a twelve-year-old girl but he couldn't stop himself. Impatiently he added, "We're going to tell Stefan in the morning. Then what?"

He knew she had to be wondering at his abrupt change of mood. He knew he'd probably just ruined a good moment between them, and that she hadn't laughed and let go like this since long before she'd died. He wished that mattered more to him than his need to know if this was real.

"I don't know, Damon," she answered slowly, tilting her head. She gave him an odd look. "What are you asking? Do you want to know literally what we're going to do after we tell Stefan, or are you asking in a more general 'what is this thing you people call relationships' kind of way?"

His mouth twisted with annoyance. It wasn't like he hadn't had ample opportunity over the years to find long-lasting female companionship or anything. He just hadn't been interested in ever attempting anything real with anyone. Because of Katherine.

And then Elena.

"Cute. I know what a relationship is, Elena," he snapped. "The last one ended a little roughly for me, don't you remember? At the tomb she wasn't fucking stuck in."

She flinched and he wished he could suck the words back, rewind time. Even though he'd said it plainly he couldn't have sounded any more pathetic if he'd tried, for God's sake.

"Damon . . ." Her eyes were soft and sad and he didn't want any of that.

While the two were nowhere near interchangeable in his eyes or his heart, Katherine and Elena did have more in common than just their duplicate bodies. Along with the spectacular ass, the Petrova women also shared a certain spark, a fire that drew him. It called to something within him like nothing else on Earth. Katherine's fire had burned him, killed him, ruined his relationship with his brother and wasted the lion's share of his undead afterlife. He'd barely survived loving that woman. What would Elena's fire do to him?

The two of them also had a canny knack of twisting him up in knots and walking away. While Elena had nothing on Katherine in terms of hurting him purposely, he thought he had every right to be a little fucking cautious here.

"How is this supposed to work? In case you haven't noticed, we don't exactly get along."

Elena shifted, treading water, bobbing a little in place. "So what? We work well together when it matters. We'll figure it out," she said, giving a him a helpless little shrug. "What do you want me to say?"

"You never thought about being with me? I know you thought about fucking me. That's not what I meant." Her eyebrows shot up and he held up a hand to stop whatever she was going to say. "I meant . . . I don't know. Everything else. The part where we're a couple. You never considered it, wondered what it would be like between us?"

"I did! Of course I did," she protested, visibly frustrated. "And obviously, most of the time I thought we couldn't possibly work and put it out of my mind because it was never going to happen. But here we are, so what do I know? Things don't always work out like you think they will."

"Gee thanks, you child, for that stunning pearl of wisdom. I hadn't figured that out for myself yet."

Suddenly she was close, close enough for her toes to connect with his shin underneath the surface of the water. Pain traveled up his leg and he wondered if vampirism had amplified her penchant for causing him bodily harm. She certainly liked to throw things at him.

Elena made an aggravated noise with a face to match and said, "I don't have any answers for you. We'll figure it out."

"You said that already," Damon pointed out, unimpressed.

Elena took a deep breath and looked to the sky for a moment. When she looked back at him, her lips twitched and she said, "I have to say, when I did imagine us together, it never occurred to me that you'd be the one all 'where is this going'?"

"Where is this going?"

"Oh my God, Damon!" she yelled, eyes clenched tightly shut. Turning, she began to swim away from him, kicking harder than necessary in order to splash him with water. She moved through the water with sure, even strokes, pausing more than once to glance back at him.

So he did what he always did, what she fully expected him to do: he chased her. Only this time, Damon was pretty sure she'd let herself be caught.

"Tell me something I don't know, something I wouldn't be able to guess about you. Never in a million years." She splashed him with both hands but he managed to dart out of the way before getting hit.

"That'll be easy," Damon replied, splashing her back. She didn't move in time and took it full in the face. You don't really know me that well."

"I know you," she protested, sputtering. Her hair was plastered to her face and she fought with it. "I just don't know many details."

"I was celibate for fifty years."

"Wait," she said, just as she managed to shove her hair back. "What?"

"I still felt like I was with Katherine, that I was taken," he answered. It was a pretty intimate detail to share, but he had to admit the look on her face was well worth his minor embarrassment.

"So, for fifty years . . . nothing," she said slowly, staring at him. "Nothing. For fifty years."

Damon shrugged. "Nope. Nothing but my own hand."

Elena continued to stare at him, her eyes taking on a new warmth. "Hmmm. I may need a demonstration at some point. I'm just not getting it."

She had her legs locked around his waist and her ankles crossed behind him, her arms wound tightly around his neck. The river flowed around them, between them, and there were sharp rocks digging into the soles of his bare feet. The pain hardly registered because he was deep inside Elena, and as far as he was concerned jagged fucking river rocks were not about to wreck this for him.

He'd had many women over the course of his life, a string of lovers stretching from the youth of his humanity right up to the recent present. Elena's body and its quirks weren't even unique to him because he'd been with Katherine. So why did being with Elena feel like nothing he'd ever experienced before? She electrified nerve endings he didn't even know he had, practically lit him on fire from the inside out. He couldn't begin to explain it.

And for some reason, he couldn't seem to stop telling her all about it, either.

"God, Elena, you feel so fucking good, oh God. So good," he babbled, his forehead pressed against hers for a moment. He held her weight effortlessly but his arms still shook the slightest bit. "You're perfect, so beautiful, oh shit, you feel so goddamn good, Elena. Amazing. Hot and tight and so-"

"Are you going to keep up a running commentary the whole time?" Elena laughed breathlessly, leaning back in order to see his face. She clutched at his shoulders as he continued to thrust, moving with him. "I should have figured the first time was a fluke and that you normally talk your way through sex."

She was teasing him, outright mocking him. He couldn't even give a fuck. Not when she looked at him like that, her smile so big and wide it crinkled up the corners of her eyes. "Well, you know me," he said, trying to keep his breath steady and his voice even. "I do love the sound of my own voice."

"No, you love me," she giggled. "I'm perfect."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Shut it, honey."

He kissed her swiftly, the moment her mouth opened to make some other smartass comment. Her legs tightened around his hips and her fucking giggles shifted into a moan when his tongue slipped past her lips. His kiss became demanding but she asked for nothing less from him in return as their mouths met again and again, again.

His thrusts picked up in both speed and strength and she responded immediately, meeting and matching him as if they'd done this more than the one time an hour or so ago. Her eager, passionate reaction was more intense than he'd ever dreamed it would be, a discovery he reveled in. He knew it was due in part to Elena becoming a vampire, but she'd been like this in Colorado, too, just to a slightly lesser degree.

Elena's orgasm hit her first, hard, surprising him, and he watched her face as she threw her head back, her lower lip caught between her teeth. The intensity of her climax was a boon to both his heart and his ego, and he nearly started babbling again about all the freaking feelings swirling around inside him. But then she clutched at him, shuddering, and her arms and legs and pussy tightened around him until all he saw and felt and knew was Elena.

He buried his face in the side of her neck as his own release overtook him just as her hold on him began to loosen. One thrust and then one more and he was coming so hard so deep inside her that he was pretty fucking sure he actually saw stars behind his eyelids. Stars. He was ruined by her, this eighteen-year-old mess of a girl. Just wrecked.

Which was going to work out just great for him when all this blew up in his face, when she inevitably came to her senses and ran as far away from him as she could get. But he didn't want to think about that yet, so he held her for several moments longer as their ragged breaths began to slow and even out. He withdrew from her warmth when she began unwinding her legs from around his flanks, easing herself away as they parted.

When her feet met the riverbed she yelped in surprise. "Ow!"

"What, the rocks?"

"I thought it was sandy over here, too," she complained, laughing a little. "Why didn't you say anything? We could have moved."

"I didn't really care, not after you climbed me like a tree," he shrugged. As he watched, she leaned back into the water, let it support her, stretching her arms over her head. "What are you doing?"

"I'm floating. The rocks are sharp-"

"You do know about the rapid healing, right? Did you skip that chapter in the handbook?"

"I'm all boneless and relaxed and I want to float," she said, and he had to admit, she did look pretty blissed out. Her eyes were closed and a dreamy little smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Float with me."

So he shifted in the water to float on his back alongside her, drifting. She reached out for him and slipped her hand into his, twining their fingers together. Anchored by each other, they might drift with the slow current but they wouldn't be separated. The thought was incredibly corny, the sort of overly romantic bullshit he figured he was going to look back on and laugh himself sick over when this fairytale fell apart.

For now he contented himself with stroking her thumb with his, back and forth, slowly. He heard her soft sigh and he smiled in response like the stupid lovestruck fool he was, thinking that he wouldn't mind it much if this night never ended.

"You said I wanted a love that consumed me."

"Fucking hell," he said, instantly and thoroughly disgusted. Damon tugged his hand free but she reclaimed it immediately, squeezing painfully, purposefully tight. Her vampire strength wasn't something he was going to get used to anytime soon, that was for sure. He could break her hold easily enough but he didn't. Instead he squeezed her hand back with an instinctive display of his own strength, stopping just short of actually hurting her. So much for romance, he thought.

"You said-"

"I know what I said." He didn't want to ask because he didn't want to know, he really didn't. "Tell me that's not why you changed your mind."

"How could it not play a part?"

Damon was done floating. "Are you kidding me? Are you really saying that finding out you met me before you met him is that big a deal? Shit, if I'd have known it was 'first come, first served' I would have-"

"Oh, shut up! I don't mean the part where we actually did meet first," she interrupted, frustrated. "Although what a beautiful memory, thanks so much for stealing that from me, by the way. I'm still a little mad about that even though I understand why you did it. But remember how I said you sabotage-"

Damon made a get-on-with-it rolling motion with his hand and her mouth snapped shut. She narrowed her eyes briefly at his impatience then said, "There's more to the story than you know."

"Like what?"

She took a deep breath before she began. "That night, when I was talking to Matt-"

"Oh, great, let's bring the quarterback into it. This just gets better and better."

Elena made that obnoxious teenage girl noise he'd hated since the first time he'd heard one make it. Her tongue clicked against the roof her mouth, followed by an 'ugh' that did absolutely nothing for his mood. "Do you want to hear this or not?" she snapped.

Damon held his hands up and she continued.

"I was talking to Matt about you and Stefan while I drank the tea he'd drugged. I was telling him about Stefan, how I felt about him and how he'd helped me feel like wanting to live again after my parents died. Stefan was the reason I managed to get on with my life at all."

"That makes it sound like you think you owe him or something."

"That's pretty much exactly what Matt said, too," Elena answered. "I don't feel like I owe him for that. That's not what I'm trying to say here. Matt asked what the problem was, then, with getting back together with Stefan."

If she called his love a problem again he thought he might just grab her up and shake her til her teeth rattled. "What did you say?"

"I said that you were the problem. Don't look at me like that, listen," she said, reaching for his hands. She stared up at him imploringly, eyes big and dark and suddenly soft. "I said, 'when I'm with him, he just consumes me.'"

It was a coincidence, he told himself, and there was more she wasn't saying. The next thing out of her mouth to the quarterback had probably been something about how none of that mattered because of Stefan.

Still . . . there had to be a word to describe what was happening inside his chest, but fuck him if he knew what that word was.

"Huh."

"So imagine how I felt when I remembered that dangerous, sexy, mysterious stranger, and how he could have hurt me for not being who he thought I was." Elena squeezed his hands underneath the water and he squeezed back, only they were gentle about it this time. "That guy could have hurt me just because that's what he used to do. He could have had me for dinner and tossed me aside. Instead he wished me all the best and left me be."

She was oversimplifying the situation by a large degree, making more of it than there was. And he hadn't exactly left her be, there had been a little stalking between the time they met and the time they met again four months later. But meeting him was a memory she clearly cherished, now that she'd recovered it, and he found that touching.

Maybe one day he'd tell her how the memory of meeting her had kept him from giving up when Ric had beaten him, that he'd fought back only after he'd remembered meeting sixteen-year-old Elena on the road that night.

"Still think I've got all the answers?"

Elena laughed. "That would be a no. You've got all the questions."

She was about to hug him, letting go of his hands to get her arms around his neck. He backed away from her and she stopped, looking up at him in confusion. He didn't know why he could never just leave well enough alone, but her confession had made him realize there was a detail or two she didn't know, either.

"There's something you should know about that night, too," he began, and she shifted away from him.

Wary, Elena asked, "What?"

"We made a deal. Stefan and I. We decided that whichever one you didn't pick would pack his shit and leave town so you could be happy."

He could tell she was trying not to lose her temper, which hadn't been easy for her while she'd still been human. "When did you make this deal?" she asked, and there was that jut of her pointed chin, the arched eyebrow. She folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts and he refused to let himself get distracted by the effect that movement produced. Nope.

Refocusing his attention, he thought about her question. "About an hour after you told us you couldn't choose between us because you were afraid you'd lose the other, which, now that I'm saying it out loud and hearing it-"

"I didn't pick you."

That stopped him short. "No," he said, holding her gaze as the mood shifted between them yet again. "You didn't."

Elena eyes sparkled a little in the moonlight as she studied his face. "You were going to die and I headed the other direction."

"You did. To be fair, though, the last time I was going to die you were a total champ about it," he said, slipping his hands up her arms and over her shoulders to cup her face gently. "Evens out."

She shook her head. "It doesn't."

"No," he agreed, simply, truthfully. "It doesn't."

More tears welled and she wrapped her hands around his wrists. "You didn't leave."

"I can't say I didn't want to. Or that I didn't try." There were two packed suitcases inside the trunk of his car at that moment, actually. If this evening had gone any other way he'd have been in the middle of escape attempt number three right now.

"I'm sorry."

The words meant more than he could ever hope to tell her, so he didn't bother trying. Instead he brushed away the spill of her tears with a sweep of his thumbs. "You ready to get out of here yet?"

"Yeah," she nodded, sniffling once before pulling it together and stepping back. She paused when a thought occurred to her, tilting her head. "I probably have a million missed calls by now. How long have we been here? I was supposed to meet up with Caroline and go to the movies or something. I was supposed to pick up a pizza for dinner before Jeremy got home from work. And by now . . ."

And by now, Stefan would no doubt be alerted to her unexplained absence. The realization clearly worried her, judging by the stricken look spreading itself across her face.

"We don't have to tell him," he heard himself say in a rush, shocking the shit out of both of them.

"What?" she asked, blinking in confusion. "What?"

"You don't have to do this," he repeated, the words like sawdust in his mouth. "I know you love him, Elena. Maybe-"

Elena held up a hand to shut him up, and thank God because who knew what else would have spilled out of his mouth. "I do. I do love him. And I don't want to hurt him, but I made a mistake. I picked him thinking it would be like it was before, back when we were so happy, but too much has happened now. I didn't know that until we tried to recreate what we used to have. It didn't work. For many reasons, but also because I'm in love with you."

It was uncanny, fucking eerie really, the way she'd managed to pluck the words out of his mind, words like 'mistake' and 'didn't work' and 'in love with you.' It was like she knew all about his drunken, hopeless fantasies, the ones where she came to him and said everything she'd just said.

Maybe this really was just an incredibly vivid dream. Maybe he was chained up somewhere, half-dead and hallucinating. It didn't matter anymore. Whatever the case, despite his best judgement, he believed her. Elena loved him the way he loved her, Elena wanted him the way he wanted her. Elena had chosen him. If this really was a dream, then please, God, please, let him sleep forever.

"So what happens now?" he asked, again, some more.

"Now . . . we get off these rocks and out of this river," she answered, beginning to laugh a little. "I mean, what the hell was I thinking? We don't even have towels or anything, I'm buck naked, all you've got are your pants-"

"Good thing we're vampires, then, because we can get back to my car in seconds," he said. Leaning in close to kiss her, he whispered, "You really ought to read the handbook."


End file.
